“What questions should be asked in a business plan?”

A business plan, explicit or implicit, is the blueprint of your business. So it is different for each business. Below are some general questions to answer.

In my experience working with start-ups and existing businesses, I find the best place to start is to graphically represent the business as a business model. It is far easier for everyone to understand the business when viewed as a graphic, and to build on.
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I like to use an adapted version of Gassman, Frankenberger, and Csik (2014) “magic triangle” framework (below) as it provides a simple, easy to understand graphic of the information needed to create a business plan and model with the focus on the view from your customer’s perspective of the value you provide. 

Each corner of the triangle and the centre can be developed with more information as your research develops. The details can easily transfer into a business plan and an interesting pitch deck for those presentations to potential investors.

Simply fill in the four circles. Who is your target market, what value are you providing your target market, how will you provide it, at what cost, price, and mark-up (pricing model)?

Now build onto your initial answers for each circle providing much more detail as you progress. Detail comes from your knowledge of your business and experience. It also comes from thorough research and analysis. For example:

• Competitor analysis - who are your competitors; where are they located; what do they offer; how does your service/product differ and why; what plan do you have in place  when your competitors start offering the same as you do?
• STEEPLE analysis - Keeping your business and target market in mind, look at current and upcoming changes to the economy, technologies, legislation, the environmental impact, politics, ethics, and the impact it will have on your business achieving its goals, on your customers.
• SWOT analysis - from the above two analyses, what are your strengths and weaknesses as a business, what opportunities can you take advantage of and how will you manage the threats.
• Value proposition - what value are you providing your customers? How do you stand out above your competitors? Do your customers want what you offer? How do you know? What research have you done? How many orders do you have already?
• Income/Expense projected for the business - how much will it cost to set up and run the business each month; what equipment, staff, materials, will be required; what revenue are you expecting each month; what will your cashflow look like? Here I recommend asking an accountant to put this together for you if you have no training in this area.
• Technologies – what processes do you need; what technologies support the workflow that provide customers with a good experience working with you.
• Outsourcing- What aspects of the business will you need to outsource because you do not have the resources internally. An example, accountants, lawyers, technology experts, to name a few.
• Forcefield analysis – taking all this information, what aspects drive your business and support its success, and what aspects will work against your business.

 
These are some of the questions to answer. Once answered add the information you accumulate to the different triangle circles. Show you know your business, market, and finances.

Now you can easily transfer the information from the graphic into a old format business plan with headings such as described by SmartAsset Top 10 Components of a Business Plan - SmartAsset

Published on Quora.